ANTI-MITOSIN ANTIBODIES IN A PATIENT WITH CHRONIC GRAFT-VERSUS-HOST DISEASE AFTER ALLOGENEIC BONE-MARROW TRANSPLANTATION

In a patient undergoing allogeneic BMT for ALL, chronic GVHD (cGVHD) w ith skin changes developed within 110 days after transplantation. One year post-BMT, anti-nuclear antibodies were detected. The patient's se rum was used for immunoscreening of a HeLa cDNA library. Ten different overlapping positive clones were found to be partial clones of mitosi n, a 350-kDa nuclear phosphoprotein which shows a speckled nuclear dis tribution in S phase and which relocates to the centromere and mitotic apparatus in M phase. Although autoantibodies against centromere prot ein-F, which is very similar to mitosin, have been reported in patient s with cancer, this is the first report of autoantibodies against mito sin in a patient with cGVHD.